J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

The new list is brill. However, I wonder would it be possible to make it a "sticky" and stay at the top of the recent list so that we don't have to search for it if there is a flurry of new topics/posts?

I understand that following a change in EU Customs regulations from 1 May, 2016, there are difficulties with EU residents hiring a car in Switzerland and then driving into the EU (e.g. Austria) - apparently, they can be treated as smuggling the car in and liable to have the car seized and/or a massive fine levied. I am finding it very difficult to get hard information on this and am worried about reports that rental companies are looking for indemnities before approving cross-border travel, etc, while some appear to be refusing to allow cross border travel at all.

I gather that some companies may have limited stock of EU registered vehicles but again I am finding it hard to get reliable information on availability and whether any charges apply. This appears to be less of an issue in Geneva where they tend to have outlets on both the French and the Swiss sides, though it is possible to get caught out if you have pre-hired from the "wrong" side and be liable to pay a surcharge at the airport!

I am looking to hire in Zurich and then drive into Austria. Anybody able to shed light on the topic?

UPDATE: I managed to get hold of an employee in Europcar Zurich. He confirmed that it is not permitted, due to EU Customs rules, for an EU resident to take a Swiss registered car into the EU (Austria/Germany France, etc). He said they had had issues where renters were turned back at the border into Germany but not so far with Austria. This would appear to suggest that they suspect some renters are crossing the border and have gotten away with it. This is fine but if Austrian Customs did decide to check, the responsibility for any issues arising would presumably fall on the renters! All in all, a bit of a mess!

When I saw this first, I thought there was a Donald Trump joke coming :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Ade is right - winter tyres would be the best bet. They will cope with anything apart from a recent very heavy dump of snow (for which you will also need chains) and more importantly do not require any work putting them on and off. However, I suspect you will struggle to find them at any Barcelona car hire company :cry:.

Chains are a very poor substitute and can only be used where there is a good covering of snow on the road - not much use for frost or light flurries. They can also be a pain to put on if you are not used to them :oops:

Dave Mac wrote:The note "UN sponsored report identified it as a likely early victim of climate change" is somewhat contentious, since the general implication is that CC is totally man made, whereas in reality, CC has been a part of the earth's history.

I thought the report was actually an OECD one but who's quibbling.

Much more importantly, it always struck me as a really crass report to produce anyway. If I recall correctly, it basically simulated the impact on the ski industry of a rise in global temperatures and concluded something along the lines of "a 2 degree celsius increase in temperature would mean less snow at lower altitudes and mean that most ski resorts relying on skiing below 2,000m asl would no longer be viable".

Of course, a temperature increase of this magnitude would probably mean the permanent flooding of large tracts of low lying land all over the world. Much of the east of England would be under water while places like Bangladesh would probably be completely covered. It would probably also bring catastrophic weather related disasters resulting in very large losses of human life. In this context, the impact on skiing seems pretty unimportant (much and all as we love it).

As admin said there is no such thing as long range weather forecasts, or at least no scientifically based ones - there are always charlatans who will peddle all sorts of forecasting models ("it'll be a bad winter because the crows are facing East" sort of thing). So if you are looking for guidance, you could look at historical snow levels for the time of year in the resort you are considering, though this is no guarantee for this year.

If you are going early, then the advice would probably be to go high where the likelihood of good snow is much improved. But be aware that there is no shelter in the higher resorts and they can suffer more in bad weather. The lower resorts are well aware of this and many of them have invested heavily in snowmaking capability - they will generally be able to open to the entire resort by early January.

For most of us who have to book flights months in advance, we do not have the luxury and waiting to see if conditions will be good - you just have to take a punt and hope conditions are reasonable.

Flims/Laax is an excellent and quite large ski area about 2 hours from Zurich. Well worth considering.

Its quite a while since I have booked any ski lessons in St Anton but last time I checked there were 2 large schools - Red and Blue, offering pretty much the same options and prices. I think they may be owned by brothers or something! They do tend to offer full day lessons but, my memory was that they were reasonably flexible on the number of days that you book. So an option might be to book, say, 3 days lessons and then ski with the kids the remaining days.

There are small independent operations but I am not familiar with them.